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Originally Posted by elemenoP
I've never heard of Open Road Media before but this is a great idea. Why aren't the original publishers putting these books out as ebooks? They don't own the rights? I guess because "ebook" did not exist when they negotiated their contracts? (I think I answered my own question.)
Right now I see a big hole in ebook availability and it's authors who are dead but their books came out after 1923. Like Daphne DuMaurier, Harper Lee, etc. I see Open Road Media has some dead authors so that's hopeful!
eP
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I'm pretty sure that Harper Lee is still alive, but I agree with your sentiment. One of the biggest gaps is the orphaned works, works that are still in copyright but not available because no one is sure who actually owns the rights to them. Many times the original copyright owner has died and the heirs are unaware they own the right, other times the original copyright owner has moved on to another career and is not longer actively pursuing try to publish the work ( there are a lot of mid list authors who fall into this group). I still say that the best solution is that a work should go out of copyright if it's been out of print (i.e. not available) for some set time _and_ the author does not actively renew the copyright, but Disney would never allow that.